'Remains of the Day' Author Kazuo Ishiguro Just Won the Nobel Prize

Following last year’s highly controversial choice for the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature—songsmith Bob Dylan—the Swedish Academy has this year gone for a much safer option: Kazuo Ishiguro, the author of beloved novels such as The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go.

The British author, who was born in Nagasaki, Japan, was chosen as his varied work “has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world,” the academy said on Thursday.

Ishiguro has written eight books, some of which have been adapted for film. The Remains of the Day, a 1989 Merchant-Ivory production, was a great success, with Anthony Hopkins playing the central role of the butler, Stevens. The dystopian Never Let Me Go saw a 2010 screen adaptation starring Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, and Andrew Garfield.

Each of those two novels has sold more than a million copies. The author has also written screenplays, such as that for the 2005 Merchant-Ivory film The White Countess